When discussing John Adams’ beliefs regarding the Bible, Frazer presented two references to an often quoted letter that Adams wrote to his friend Francois Van der Kemp. Frazer claimed that this letter is evidence of John Adams’ theistic rationalism because it presents both Adams’ acceptance of some revelation and his belief that the Bible is filled with fables. Unfortunately for Frazer, the letter in question does not support his claim that Adams believed the Bible to be filled with fables.

One of the most frustrating aspects of Gregg Frazer’s book The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders is the abundance of errors that he blunders into when discussing the various theological positions that were debated during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Frazer has a tendency to assume that the theological terms which were in use at that time were understood in the exact same manner in which they are understood today. This can lead to some very serious misinterpretations as we can see in his discussion of Adams’ beliefs about the Bible.

After criticizing John Adams for having a supposedly Deistic view of creation, Gregg Frazer decided to further condemn Adams for having a Deistic form of worship. This is a very interesting claim by Frazer for the simple reason that he never provided an explanation of how he thinks that true Christians ought to worship God. He did say at an earlier point in his book that Deists thought “the best way to worship God was to do good to and for one’s fellow man.” Yet Frazer never explained how this differs from the way in which a Christian ought to worship God or how it differs from the definition of pure religion given in James 1:27.

Frazer’s third error in his chapter on Adams follows hard on the heels of his first two errors. In fact, his first three errors are all in the same paragraph regarding Adams’ beliefs about the Creator. To conclude that paragraph, Frazer wrote:

As I mentioned in part 1, I am reading through Gregg Frazer’s book The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders and responding to his erroneous quotations from and conclusions about the founders of our nation. Frazer claims that the most important founders were not Christians but rather followers of a hybrid belief system that he refers to as “Theistic Rationalism.” I’m currently in the chapter on John Adams, and Frazer’s second error follows immediately after his first. According to Frazer:

It’s been nearly four years since I purchase my copy of The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders in which Gregg Frazer claims that America’s founders were not Christians but were actually followers of a hybrid religion that Frazer termed “Theistic Rationalism.” I previously wrote about the theological errors of Frazer’s claim, and my goal at the time was to present a detailed analysis of his quotations from and his conclusions about our nation’s founders. Unfortunately, life forced me to put off that goal for a few years, but now that I have a bit more time available for research, I’ve decided to return to Frazer’s book and respond to as much of it as I can.

As I was scrolling through facebook yesterday, I came across this meme in my news feed:

Usually, I just roll my eyes at these kind of attempts, but I was a little bored that morning, so I decided to actually find the original sources of the quotes and write a response. Here is what I posted as a reply to this meme:

Bill Fortenberry is a Christian philosopher and historian in Birmingham, AL. Bill's work has been cited in several legal journals, and he has appeared as a guest on shows including The Dr. Gina Show, The Michael Hart Show, and Real Science Radio.

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